Ingrid Andress Opens Up About What Led to Her ‘Horrific’ National Anthem & How She’s Moving On

Ingrid Andress is ready to move on from her controversial national anthem performance. 

In her first interview since going to rehab after her botched take of the “Star-Spangled Banner” at the 2024 Home Run Derby served as a wakeup call to her issues with alcohol, the country singer-songwriter opened up to Rolling Stone about everything that led up to her “worst moment” — and how she’s grown from it since. “I am sorry you had to witness that horrific rendition of our nation’s anthem,” she began in a piece published Thursday (March 6) .  

“Whoever that was is not an accurate representation of who I am at all,” she continued. “You got to see me in my worst moment, so now, everything from here will be great.” 

Andress went on to explain that, by the time she stepped onto the field in Arlington, Texas, last July, she’d already been accustomed to drinking before gigs to numb unresolved feelings about her career and a certain breakup — and that day was no exception. Up until then, however, she’d “never let it get in the way of my performance,” she told the publication. “I liked the numbness … That’s part of how it got out of control.” 

This time around, the “More Hearts Than Mine” singer said she was too “blacked out” to hear the anthem’s starting pitch in her in-ear monitors, which contributed to the pitchiness and questionable melodic choices viewers witnessed that day. “If you don’t start on the note that it gives you, you’re screwed,” she explained. “It was my voice fighting with the tuner, which is a losing battle.” 

Andress didn’t immediately realize how badly the performance went, but the online vitriol that followed quickly opened her eyes to how serious the issue was. She quickly drafted a statement at her team’s suggestion — “I’m not gonna bulls–t y’all, I was drunk last night … That was not me last night,” she wrote — and was on a plane to a rehab facility outside of her home state of Tennessee mere hours later. 

“I didn’t run that statement by anybody,” she said in the interview, adding that she received messages of support from fellow women country artists such as Elle King, Kelsea Ballerini and Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild in the aftermath. “I needed to let people know that it’s not just this one incident that I messed up. ‘I need to get better. I’m at such a low place, I’m not gonna lie about it.'” 

The four-time Grammy nominee has since completed treatment and, after spending months reconnecting with herself in her native Colorado, redeemed herself with a second national anthem performance at a recent Colorado Avalanche hockey game. On Monday (March 3), she also released her first song since the debacle: “Footprints,” a musical “reminder to all the people I love the most, and also to myself, that I’m out here trying my best at this ‘life’ thing,” she wrote on Instagram this week.  

Of what her redemption arc has taught her, Andress told Rolling Stone, “I learned to not ever let your past dictate what you can do in the future.”  

She added, “Sometimes it takes a little public humiliation to turn your life around.”